Originally this evening was set up with Paul and a young woman named Holly. But Holly was off the agenda some time before the evening came round and Scott elected to come down to London to see us instead.
From memory, dinner at the Dock Kitchen had always been on the agenda for this event, but once the dramatis personae changed we thought that some light entertainment before dinner might go down well.
So we booked an hour of stand up comedy at Riverside Studio 3: Andrew Lawrence. He turned out to be pretty good. Stand up comedy is not usually Janie’s thing, but the young men (all three of us) enjoyed it – as did Janie really. This was more thoughtful and less obvious than a lot of stand up.
Then we hot-footed it to the canalside at Ladbroke Grove/Kensal Road to try Dock Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant that had popped up the previous year and stayed around for several years.
It was a really good meal to round off a really good evening.
Dance is not really my thing. Watching dance isn’t really Janie’s thing.
But Anthea and Mitchell were keen to go to this and were raving about it being original and different.
I’m sure it was.
I liked the music in the second half; all Bowie, Eno, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, The Bruce Gilbert and Wire music in the first half left me a bit cold.
The dancing is of course incredibly skillful, it just doesn’t do anything for me.
I could see why Anthea and Mitchell, as fashion show photographers, would relate to the piece; it felt (to me) like watching one long fashion show parade.
We ran into my former colleague Angela Greenfield at the Barbican, sitting directly behind us – how weird is that? We’d sometimes bump into her at the theatre and it seems that she, like me and Janie, was there with friends who had dragged her to something she wouldn’t normally see. I think she enjoyed it as we did.
We went on to the Hix Oyster and Chop House in Farringdon for a late but much needed meal, which was very good and gave us all a chance to chat and catch up properly.
Through our chance encounter in Mexico and resulting friendship with philosophers Alan Montefiore and Catherine Audard, I would occasionally be invited to a high falutin’ philosophical event.
I bought a copy the day after the dinner. I even pretty much read the book. It’s main premise was that the baby boomer generation had stolen much from the future of the coming generation or two.
Strangely, once in government, he went on to be the Universities minister who advocated upping the university tuition fees, which seems strangely at odds with the main premise of his book, but there you are. Two Brains is a Baron at the time of writing (October 2017) and Chair of the Resolution Foundation.
Anyway, as always with these Forum For European Philosophy dinners, the food was good, the company around the table most impressive and it was always a pleasure to spend time with Alan and Catherine.
This exhibition was a few years before Janie became a friend of the Royal Academy but after they had started taking Friday late bookings, which suited us very well in those days. In fact, we still like going to the galleries and museums for those late openings.
Anyway, that’s what we did.
We both really liked this exhibition. Not only a chance to see some of Van Gogh’s superb works but also a rare chance to see his letters.
I remember being astonished by Phillie’s energy, although she was very poorly by then, as she wanted to explore some other bits of the V&A before we left.
For some strange reason we have no pictures from the 2009 Z/Yen seasonal event. I find it hard to believe that none were taken, yet there is no sign of anyone uploading a batch to the Z/Yen server, although that habit had become established by the end of 2009.
The headline picture “Z/Yen In Hats” was actually taken the previous year, but was the December 2009 picture in the Z/Yen calendar, so it will have to do.
Our friend and client (through Charity IT Leaders), Sarah Winmill, was CIO at the V&A at that time. She very kindly gave us a private viewing and “backstage look” at the highly popular Decode Exhibition which was “the thing” at the V&A that season.
The following video gives a good idea of the fascinating stuff on show.
Needless to say, many Z/Yen folk were as happy as Larry at that show. Even an arty technophobe like Janie found lots to enjoy there and all enjoyed the behind the scenes tour.
Then on to the Notting Hill Brasserie.
I do hope that someone who attended did take pictures and keep them – a stack of pictures from that dinner would be good. I remember it was a lively crowd and the private room there was a good venue for our do.
The seasonal song that year was our first (but not last) attempt at “ExtZy” to the tune of Branle D’Official (Ding Dong Merrily On High) – click here for a pdf or read below:
The Silence Of Lorna is quite a harrowing film about Albanians in Belgium trying to get an EU passport.
Perhaps not ideal fare at the end of a hard week’s work, but that’s what we did.
To cheer ourselves up afterwards, we took away food from the Thai Bistro in Chiswick – one of our favourites. It has changed its name a few times since 2009, including some infeasibly unpronouncable and unmemorable names, but at the time of writing, June 2019, it is named Tor Thai Bistro.
I think we went to two movies in one afternoon/evening that season.
Janie wrote down both of these movies in her diary fort hat day and I seem to recall working out a way round seeing them both on the same day – by seeing Lemon Tree (the shorter) in the afternoon in Swiss Cottage and then driving to Panton Street for I’ve Loved You So Long.
You could park around Panton Street, even on days when the parking was free, at Twixtmas time back then. Of course, Twixtmas wasn’t known as Twixtmas back then.
Here’s the YouTube of it so you can watch from here instead (but for the resources as well, you need to click the above link):
More observant followers of this lecture (e.g. John White) noticed that I strung some lines from songs and stuff through the slides. I made up an iTunes playlist for the lecture – back then, iTunes playlists felt like fun things to try. Here it is:
We held a traditional Z/Yen-Gresham reception in the Headmaster’s Study after the lecture. Doubtless someone pointed out my resemblance to the Chandos Portrait of Shakespeare in that room – someone always did. As I explained on Facebook to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death:
After the reception, Michael Mainelli escorted an honoured few of us to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for one of his traditional post lecture meals. Not sure exactly who attended but I do recall Michael, Elisabeth, Kim, Micky, Charlie, Me, Janie and a few others.
Blimey O’Reilly; three galleries in one day and it looks as though we played tennis in the morning before setting off, if my diary scribble is to be believed.
First up: Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque at The Royal Academy. This exhibition might have been curated just for us; we both really like all four of these fellas.
I think the Osbert Lancaster was a sweetener for me, as I love his cartoons. Not sure Janie was so interested. Perhaps she didn’t realise how keen I was on the other stuff we’d scheduled for that day. Anyway, we had time and off we went. Another exhibition that had just opened a few days before. Click here for the Wallace Collection pages on the exhibition.
In short, this day was an embarrassment of riches in the exhibition stakes – we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
